


don't let go, it's what makes you real

by dialecstatic



Series: whatever a sun will always sing is you [8]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Introspection, Slice of Life, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, angst with a hopeful ending is the best way to describe it, here comes a special girl, the dreamies are back and they're still the best, trans girl!kun, what is structure we just dont know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14579403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dialecstatic/pseuds/dialecstatic
Summary: somewhere in the middle of it all, kun finds home.





	don't let go, it's what makes you real

**Author's Note:**

> title from "raging fire" by phillip phillips

Kun has places she likes to go when the world gets too much to bear and she needs to feel warm.

There had always been something in her, a desire to make herself useful to her community, to help anyone who ever felt the way she did - still does, sometimes, when night won’t leave her and the words die in her throat as she tries, desperately, to define herself. Back home, it had been in the smallest ways; internet chats and half her allowance in a nondescript envelope, hoping she wouldn’t get caught on her way to the post office. Now she’s older, a little bit wiser, and the world can’t take her for granted anymore.

When she starts college, fresh mindset and eyes focused on the future, she joins the campus’ unofficial - and yet very real - LGBT support group. The first few friends she makes are there, Yuta with that fire in their eyes, the gentle firmness of Taeil’s words, and the depth of Taeyong’s soul, where Kun wanted to plunge her hands and retrieve the light she always knew was there, from the moment they met. She helps them organize and rally - it gets all the more intense when Ten joins them, his personality and Yuta’s sparking up a flame that overtakes everything in its way - and through it all, Kun finds purpose, for what feels like the first time in her life.

In the break between semesters, Taeil invites her to help organize a clothing drive, and the world clicks into place. The feeling of helping others, of becoming someone who drives her community forward, settles in Kun’s soul like the answer to an age old question. She branches out, finds the local shelters and associations, lends both of her hands to their cause.

Between the friends who lift her up and a community that finally welcomes her, Kun feels, for the first time, like she belongs.

 

___

 

She’d met Yukhei by chance on his first day of classes when he nearly poked her eye out as he desperately tried to find his way to the auditorium. The logistics of their friendship confuse some and amuse many, but to Kun, Yukhei is the little brother she never really knew she wanted until he came along and slotted himself in her heart like a brand new mechanism. There’s no stress or unsaid things between them, a perfect balance of Yukhei’s cheerful innocence and Kun’s own self-certainty. He’d embraced her with open arms when she told him about herself, gave her his support without question or condition.

There are a lot of things Yukhei doesn’t know, still, about himself and about life, and Kun tries her best to show him the way. She doesn’t want him to always rely on her or others, but giving him a push in the right direction never hurts. He’s still figuring himself out, after all, and Kun remembers all too well how that had been, a cloud of doubt and fear over her head that she lugged around anywhere she went.

So on Sundays, when the sky is grey and weeping, Kun often finds herself leaning against the wall of Yukhei’s bedroom, his head on her shoulder and the sound of some movie covering the rain outside. It’s the easiest thing in the world to them, this familiarity, like they grew up together. And maybe they still are, Kun thinks sometimes, between Yukhei’s ever growing curiosity about the intricacies of the world, and her own desire to become more than what people told her she was, all those years ago, before she even knew her own name.

Today, Yukhei can’t sit still. He fidgets, wrings his hands, checks his phone a little too much, and Kun has learned to detect the signs that something is up with him too well to believe it’s just the stress of coursework. She leans over to shut the laptop down, earning a confused sound from Yukhei, and waddles a little on her knees to sit in front of him.

“What’s eating you, baby.” she states rather than asks, because she knows his tendency to dramatize.

Yukhei tries to hide his face in his pillow just the same, mumbling ‘nothing’ from under the fabric. Kun rocks forward, sticks two fingers right between his ribs and Yukhei yelps, limbs flying everywhere as he tries, helplessly, to defend himself.

“Don’t lie to me, Xuxi. I know you. I practically raised you.”

The young man sighs and hangs his head, letting himself tumble forward in Kun’s lap. He’s almost twice as big as she is but still manages to fit there, a weird sort of comfort that really only exists between the two of them.

“IhadsexwithTaeil.” Yukhei mumbles against Kun’s shirt, clearly hoping that the fabric will muffle the sound.

“You… You did what?”

Kun has to try her hardest to suppress a laugh. She knows no one would take Yukhei for the type to be shy about sex, but there had been something about this particular crush that reduced him to putty, and seemingly everyone noticed before he did. It comes as no surprise to her that Taeil, not typically one to leave things unsaid, had taken matters into their own hands.

“Xuxi.”

“I had sex. With Taeil. I slept with Taeil, okay? I let them… Oh my god, Kunnie, what the fuck?”

“Calm down.” Kun says, fingers tangling in Yukhei’s hair to soothe him just a little. “Tell me everything.”

And so Yukhei does, and Kun finds herself raising her eyebrows in surprise more times than she thought she would. She did always figure Taeil would be a little mischievous in bed, just as they are in life. She’d never experienced it for herself, but even with only Yukhei’s stuttering recollection of the events to go off of, his cheeks turning visibly redder with each sentence, she can imagine how they’d play anyone to their own tune. There’s a certain tone in Yukhei’s voice, though, that lets Kun know he enjoyed it more than his jumbled words would let on.

“Kunnie… Is it weird if I say I think I’m in love with them?”

Kun doesn’t really think about love. Or, to be more accurate, she tries not to think about it, of all the times she’d been made to second guess whether she is even lovable at all. She knows what - who - she wants, and the issue is there exactly. The women she loves are, most of the time, there until they find out, and then they look at her like she wronged and deceived them, like she isn’t even human. It’s days like that, nights like that, left in the metaphorical rain (and one time, the actual rain, and she’d shown up drenched and crying on Sicheng’s doorstep, twenty-one years old and a heart in pieces) that leave Kun feeling that maybe, love is better left on the shelf for now. It’s one thing to get hurt by people you don’t know, to learn how to brush their remarks off like dust. It’s another to find yourself at the edge of your own love, like you were never built for it.

“No, not weird at all.” is what she says instead, because she’s learned to compartmentalize her feelings almost too well by now. “You should tell them about it instead of me, though.”

Yukhei whines and tries to hide his face again, but Kun picks him up just the same.

 

___

 

“So. What do we think?”

Sicheng speaks from where they’re nearly buried under a pile of fabric, colors whirling around them in a way that’s not quite unusual. There’s crêpe across their lap (despite Yuta’s protests that they would never, under any circumstances, wear it), chiffon thrown across their shoulders, and satin slipping off their arm as they try to present a sample board of sequins and lace patterns.

“Well,” Kun says, relieving Sicheng of the board before reaching for the chiffon, laughing as Sicheng shivers when it slips against their skin. “I like this color a lot. And see,” she brings it up to Yuta’s face, “They’ll look great in it.”

“That’s besides the point. I look great in everything.” Yuta interjects, taking a sip of their coffee for added effect.

“I just want to make sure it’s perfect, you know?” Sicheng fiddles with some buttons as they speak, picking one up and rolling it between their fingers. “This is one of the pieces I’ll be presenting for my final exam, after all, and-”

“Winnie. Relax.”

Yuta moves from their seat next to Kun to drop down beside Sicheng, kissing the top of their head as they go. Sicheng lets out a heavy sigh and leans back against the couch, fabric falling off of their body in cascades of soft tones and settling on the table like an impressionist rendition of a lake.

“You make beautiful things. Just go with your instincts, and everything will be fine.”

There’s something almost amusing in the way Yuta completely mellows out when they’re with Sicheng, putting a cap on their own abrasiveness just for their sake. No one really ever gets the same treatment, not that they’d request it; this is just how things are, and it always tugs at everyone’s heartstrings to see Yuta drop any pretense for a moment and simply be a fool in love. Kun often thinks they might be the better-adjusted people of their group - despite Yuta’s resurging tendency to get themselves arrested - and their relationship would certain suggest it.

It’s a beautiful thing to Kun, how two people can fall in together as easily as these two have. They’ve grown under each other’s care, and the mutual understand of their own struggles led to something better being born, confidence that made Sicheng bloom and softness that helped Yuta heal. She’d seen it all happen, too touched to be jealous, the joy of seeing her friends thrive with each other’s help filling the negative space in her heart where loneliness and self-hatred had been, all those years ago.

“This purple…” she starts, grabbing the chiffon again and winding it around her arm, “this gold appliqué, too. It’ll look better than lace, I think.”

Sicheng perks up at her words, picking up their notepad to write everything down.

“And try maybe some satin double, if you feel like it’s too sheer. One tone darker, I’d say? Maybe two?”

“You’re the best, Kunnie.” Sicheng chirps, gathering everything in their arms as Kun goes along.

Moments like this make everything worth it, Sicheng’s face lighting up as they roughly color their sketch in, nimble fingers running along the fabric and the bumps of the appliqué, feeling the textures and the weight of it all, how it’ll look on a living model. Kun grins at them, leaning forward to give Yuta’s shoulder a playful punch.

“You really are, though.” they say, arms crossed against their chest. “What would we ever do without you.”

Yuta sticks their tongue out in adorable defiance, but then they smile, and between that and the way Sicheng seems to have come alive again, it’s all Kun could ever ask for.

 

___

 

Ten and Kun are more alike than people give them credit for, in a way, even if their minds have led them on different paths.

Ten thrives in action. He’s always on the frontlines of every rally or protest, a one man revolution in everything he does. Late friday hours at the café turn into heated debates and discussions, and he leads the way, his words enthralling the audience even beyond their group. He talks, and the world listens. It’s as simple as that, for him, a captivating presence that draws people in, makes others want to gather around him and follow him into any battle he may want to fight. There’s no wonder someone like Johnny, unapologetic in his own way, who prefers to mold the world rather than watch it pass by, fell as hard and fast in love with Ten as he did. They suit each other like the sun and the earth.

Kun likes the calm and quiet of simply helping, finding small ways to see them smile. She relishes in the easy joys of life, helping a girl like her pick out her first dress and watching the joy that lights up her face when she sees herself in the mirror, guiding discussion groups with high school students who aren’t confused so much as misunderstood and helping them find a way out of the haze. She does all of that because she wishes someone had done it for her, the simplest things denied to her when she was still finding herself, accepting herself. Being a woman had been one thing, the feeling hard to pinpoint until it wasn’t anymore, until it turned into a certitude. She nurtured it best she could, in small ways back home, found what felt comfortable to her until she wasn’t afraid to introduce herself on her first day of college. Time has passed since then, and with it, most of the uncertainty that had held her back for longer than she ever wanted.

 

If Ten is fire, destroying every prejudiced and preconceived idea in his way to leave new soil behind, then Kun is rain, nurturing and helping that soil as it sprouts a new world from the core of the Earth. They knew, as soon as they met, that they were polar opposites in this, in the ideals that they still share despite their different ways.

“It’s just not for me,” Ten says, taking a swig of his beer and wincing when his lip almost gets caught on the metal rim of the can. “You have a way with those kids, you know what to tell them. I’m not patient enough sometimes, y’know?”

“Maybe when they’re older, and I can teach them the ways of the revolution!” his voice shoots up into the sky on the last word, like a declaration, like a promise.

“You’ll probably scare them, to be honest.” Kun swings back, lifting her can and giving Ten a wink that he pretends to capture with his hand. “Or they’ll scare you, who knows! They’re full of surprises, I promise.”

Ten gives her a look of pretend offense at that, complete with a dramatic shoulder jerk, but he ends up smiling all the same, the lines of his face softening as he looks over the horizon.

“Doesn’t it feel like a burden sometimes? I mean… These kids, they look up to you so much, I don’t know how you handle it.” his eyes are downcast with something that, if Kun didn’t know Ten as well as she does, would almost look like doubt. It might be melancholy, the feeling that grips everyone indiscriminately, of not knowing exactly where or who you’re supposed to be.

Kun supposes even Ten feels that way sometimes, in between the sparks.

“I don’t know if I’m a good role model. I wish I had your confidence in that.” Ten finishes, nursing his beer with both hands to busy himself.

The question of whether she’s a good role model or not often crosses Kun’s mind, wondering if the kids can tell that she doesn’t quite have it all figured out either. She often asks herself if she knows enough, if she’s confident enough to encourage those same convictions in them, but the voice of reason at the back of her head always tells her that if she doesn’t show them that it’s okay to not know sometimes, they’ll end up hurting even more trying to push through things that might knock them right back down.

“I think there are very few people who can do what you do.” is what she replies when Ten sighs, and she reaches out her hand to squeeze his shoulder. “We need all the different pieces to create a new world, isn’t that what you always say?”

She’s relieved to see a smile spread across Ten’s face at that, and she bumps their cans together.

“How has it been going, anyway? With the kids?”

Kun shifts where she’s sitting on her jacket, fingers absentmindedly playing with a single blade of grass as night falls slowly over them. She’s always been good with kids, watching over the younger children of her neighborhood back home even as a child herself, and so it had been almost natural, when she stumbled upon a call for volunteers at the local LGBT youth center, to go and see it for herself. It had been, perhaps time will tell, the best decision of her life.

 

___

 

Saturdays are, one week out of two, Kun’s favorites.

Not because she’s free of classwork, she does well enough in that, or because she can sleep in, but because she gets to wake up knowing she’ll see the faces and smiles of the kids that are most precious to her. She’d walked into the youth center one day and never looked back, signing up her name as a volunteer for every other week - the other volunteer, Yixing, is a stern at first glance but quite amicable man, someone who looks like he carries a certain weight along with him, and he’d introduced her to each of the kids as if they were his own. Kun now understands better than anyone how it came to be that way.

When she walks through the door, Kun is always struck by their energy, pure and untainted, not yet lost to the world. It’s her role, after all, to make sure that never happens.

Overtime, she learns their differences and their quirks, each of them the sketch of a fully realized person striving to be completed. There’s a few things here and there that let Kun know they’ll get there someday, stray brush strokes and colors that spill out of the lines, an endless desire to be more than this world ever bargained for.

It’s in the way Jisung can’t ever seem to sit still, his body hardwired to dance even when the only music playing is in his head. He gives Kun two tickets to a competition he’s taking part in, and she brings Ten along with her, the two of them putting every other parental unit to shame with the way they cheer, Ten soon offering Jisung a spot in the classes he teaches on weekends.

  
It’s Renjun’s boundless curiosity, how he never hesitates to ask questions each more hard hitting or complex than the next, how he makes Kun think about the complexities of life and things she thought she had all figured out. She likes the challenge, though, and does her best to engage the conversations, keeping her own mind sharp.

  
It’s there in Haechan’s unabashed enthusiasm for life, the way they take it all headfirst and refuse to bend, a lion’s heart beneath their sunny disposition. Kun knows there’s never going to be a dull moment when Haechan is there, and she wonders sometimes where they find the strength to be like that, to exist without fear. She wishes and works, with all her might, for that strength to never be extinguished.

It’s how Jeno and Jaemin seem to gravitate around each other like maladjusted magnets, teenage romance a foregone conclusion to everyone around except themselves, but Kun can’t blame them when she remembers tiptoeing around her own feelings at that age. It’s difficult to let yourself love when you feel like you’re hard to love, when you’re still struggling to grasp who you are and where you belong. They’ll get there someday, if it’s meant to be. Figuring themselves out is the important step, and Jaemin especially will need that time, to build himself into a person he can be proud of.

And then, it’s also in those times Chenle seems to get lost in thought, lost in space, somewhere only they can see. Kun often wonders where their mind goes when they absentmindedly play a ghost piano over their knee during the affirmation, when they sit back amidst the joyous chaos and just watch it unfold, when they cut in with a witty remark that makes everyone take a step back and listen. From the moment she met them, Kun thought there was something different about Chenle, an ancient sort of wisdom melding with youthful innocence.

There’s something in all of them, deep rooted and precious, that reminds Kun of everything she loves and everyone she cherishes, in the life she’s been given. On days when it feels like there isn't much she can do to keep the wheel turning, Kun thinks about the kids and remembers that they're counting on her, that they trust her to lead the way. She would hate to let them down, to betray their still-growing hearts; it isn't something she'd ever allow herself to do even if it killed her.

"Sometimes it feels like you're not even living for yourself." Yuta had said one night, their tone more concerned than accusatory.

Kun had wondered, on the spot, if that was true. There isn’t much she’d rather be doing, but the implications had hit her in a strange way, asking questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.

Now, she knows. There’s the life she was given, sure, but there’s also the life she chose, the one she gets to create as she sees fit. And when Kun wakes up, some fluttering thing in the pit of her stomach tells her that there’s reasons to keep living all around, if you know where to find them.

The smile on a friend’s face,

a sudden realization,

the way a teenager feels when they find another piece of their soul along the way.

All those things and more make the effort worth it, Kun thinks. It makes her want to keep going, to keep living a life she can be proud of. Maybe she is living for others as well, giving and giving without expecting much in return.

But in that she finds her peace of mind, a purpose that helps her make sense of it all.

 

In all of that, in a certain definition, Kun finds home.

**Author's Note:**

> i birthed this with no epidural and boy did it hurt.
> 
> thank you to bru, dylan, & ricki once again, y'all are my superheroes.
> 
> i just want to take a lil moment to express my immense gratitude towards everyone who reads this series & everyone who has left encouraging and nice comments on it, i can't really express how happy it makes me feel but know that y'all are the reason i write & you keep me going ~
> 
> also, happy birthday cody !! hope you have the best day & life, i'm really happy that we're friends uwu
> 
> same drill as usual, find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/diaminghao) if you want to scream at me or anything of the sort haha
> 
> ttfn!!


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